Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/305

M A H M U D 287 of Hinduism, between the Sutlej and the Jumna. Having now found his way across all the Punjab rivers, he was induced on two subsequent occasions to go still farther. But first he designed an invasion of Kashmir (1015), which was not carried out, as his progress was checked at L6h-kot, a strong hill-fort in the north-west of the Punjab. And then beforeundertakinghis longer inroad into Hindustan he had to march north into Khwarizm (Khiva) against his brother-in-law Mamun, who had refused to acknowledge Mahmud s supremacy. The result was as usual, and Mahmud, having committed Khwarizm to a new ruler, one of Mamun s chief officers, returned to his capital. Then in 1018, with a very large force, he proceeded to India again, extending his inroad this time to the great Hindu cities of Mathra on the Jumna and Kanauj on the Ganges. To the glory of reducing the one and receiving the submission of the other he added, as was his custom, the further satisfaction of carrying back great stores of plunder from both to his own country. Three years later he went into India again, marching over nearly the same ground, to the support, this time, of the raja of Kanauj, who, having made friendship with the Mohammedan invader on his last visit, had been attacked by the raja of Kalinjar. But Mahmud found he had not yet sufficiently subdued the idolaters nearer his own border, between Cabul and the Indus, and the campaign of the year 413 (1022 A.D.) was directed against them, and reached no farther than Peshawar. Another march into India the following year was made direct to Gwalior. The next expedition (1025) is the most famous of all. The point to which it was directed was the temple of Somnath on the coast of the Gujerat peninsula. After an arduous journey by Multan, and through part of Rajputana, he reached Somnath, and met with a very vigorous but fruitless resistance on the part of the Hindus of Gujerat. Moslem feet soon trod the courts of the great temple. The chief object of worship it contained was broken up, and the fragments kept to be carried off to Ghazni. The story is often told of the hollow figure, cleft by Mahmud s battle- axe, pouring out great store of costly jewels and gold. But the idol in this Sivite temple was only a tall block or pillar of hewn stone, of a familiar kind. The popular legend is a very natural one. Mahmud, it was well known, made Hindu temples yield up their most precious things. He was a determined idol-breaker. And the stone block in this temple was enriched with a crown of jewels, the gifts of wealthy worshippers. These data readily give the Somnath exploit its more dramatic form. For the more recent story of the Somnath gates see GHAZNI, vol. x. p. 560. After the successes at Somnath, Mahmud remained some months in India before returning to Ghazni. Then in 1026 he crossed the Indus once more into the Punjab. His brilliant military career closed with an expedition to Persia, in the third year after this, his last visit to India. The Indian campaigns of Mahmud and his father were almost, but not altogether, unvarying successes. The Moslem historians touch lightly on reverses. And, although the annals of Rajputana tell how Subuktigfn was defeated by one raja of Ajmir and Mahmud by his successor, the course of events which followed shows how little these and other reverses affected the invader s progress. Mahmud s failure at Ajmir, when the brave raja Bisal-deo obliged him to raise the siege but was himself slain, was when the Moslem army was on its way to Somnath. Yet Mahmud s Indian conquests, striking and important in themselves, were, after all, in great measure barren, except to the Ghazni treasury. Mahmud retained no possessions in India under his own direct rule. But after the repeated defeats, by his father and himself, of two successive rajas of Lahore, the conqueror assumed the right of nominating the governors of the Punjab as a dependency of Ghazni, a right which continued to be exercised by seven of his successors. And for a time, in the reign of Masaud II. (1098-1114), Lahore was the place of residence of the Ghaznavi sovereign. Certain silver coins of Mahmud s reign bear inscriptions in Sanskrit characters as well as Arabic, betokening sovereignty in India. They are dated 418 and 419 A.H., the two years immediately following his last visit to the Punjab, and are struck at a place called by his name, Mahmudpur, supposed to be Lahore. There are also copper coins struck at Lahore (now retaining legible dates) bearing Mahmud s name and the caliph s, in Arabic characters only. Mahmud s coins are numerous and histori cally important. They were issued from mints at Nisabur, Hirat, Ghaznah (a common alternative form of the name), Farwan, and Balkh, besides Mahmudpur and Lahore, just mentioned. Mahmud died at Ghazni in 1030, the year following his expedition to Persia, in the sixty-first year of his age and thirty-third of his reign. Mahmud stands conspicuous for his military ardour, his ambi tion, strong will, perseverance, watchfulness, and energy, combined with great courage and unbounded self-reliance. But his tastes were not exclusively military. His love of literature brought men of learning to Ghozni. His acquaintance with Moslem theology was recognized by the learned doctors. Mahnrad is accused of avarice. It has been sard that the prospect of booty was as strong a motive power in these repeated invasions of India as his love of military glory and desire to shine as a champion of the faith. An illustration commonly given of his want of liberality is his treat ment of the poet Firdousi. Delighted with a portion which was read to him of the poet s metrical romance narrating the deeds of the early kings of Persia, Mahmud presented him with a thousand dinars, one for each couplet, with an implied promise, or at least expectation on the part of the author, of payment on the same scale for the rest. The completed Shdh Ndmak, presented in due course, contained no less than sixty thousand couplets, and the reward this time was given in dirhcms instead of dindrs. Firdousi retired in disgust to his native place, Tiis, and satirized the sultan. At a later time, it is said, Mahmud sent him the larger sum; but the poet died just before it arrived. Mahmiid had the general repu tation of giving liberal and discerning encouragement to learned and literary men. Among those who took up their abode at Ghazni in his time, the most noted, after Firdousi, were the poet Unsuri of Balkh, whose compositions were largely devoted to the praise of the sultan Mahmud ; another poet, Asjudi of Merv, who wrote a grand ode on the Somnath expedition ; El Utbi of Khorasan, author of the Kitab-i- Yamini, a history of Subuktigin and of Mahmud (to about the middle of Ids reign): and the accomplished historian, Abu Rihan, called Al Biruni, author of the Tarikli ul Hind, as well as of a number of scientific works. The sultan established large educational institutions at Ghazui. Mahmud also found time to bestow attention on other arts of peace, and did not neglect his capital and the country around. Large sums were devoted to important public works. The building of the great Jama Masjid of Ghazni is described by El Utbi in admiring terms. A splendid palace which Mahrmid built induced wealthy nobles at Ghazni to erect great mansions for themselves. Two fine towers or minarets at Ghazni, 140 feet in height, bearing Mahmud s name (though one is said to have been built by his successor) have attracted the attention of travellers.^ They are of a remarkable construction, the lower part with a zigzag or star- shaped outline, the upper part round, like the third and fourth stories of the Kutb Minar at Delhi, built two centuries later. Like the Kutb pillar too, they are isolated, and may, like it, have served as the minarets for a separate mosque or mosques. The dam called the Band-i-Sultdn, which Mahmud constructed to form an artificial lake for irrigation, appears to have been a really great and substantial work. Mahmud, besides being marked by small-pox, had an ill- favoured countenance, and knew it. Courtiers met his allusions to his personal appearance by the familiar complimentary remarks about inward graces more than counterbalancing outward defects. He himself is said to have observed, after looking in the glass, that he saw so many faults in himself he was ready to excuse those of others. Mahmud s tomb stands in a garden a short distance from Ghazni, called Rauzat-i-SuUdn ("the sultan s tomb," or "garden the word means both). On one of the minarets is an inscription wind gives all his titles. On the massive tombstone within the buildin he is named more briefly Nizam-ed-din Abu l Kasim Mahmud, so of Subuktigin. He was succeeded by his son Muhammad, who was

soon displaced by his more vigorous brother Musaud.